from zero
to fintech
2023

18 – 26 March 2023

A Hackathon for a Fintech-savvy nation

ORGANISERS

What is From Zero To Fintech?

The contemporary Fintech market is as boundless as the Galaxy. With this Hackathon, we – BFA, FEBA at Sofia University, and our partners are aiming at navigating you through all asteroids, comets, black holes, or supernovas in the Fintech world of 2023. In a series of workshops, the event provides all participants with the tools to:

  • Build a spacecraft – creating a sustainable Fintech idea
  • Prepare for take-off – pitching before investors
  • Make sure to avoid asteroids – be in compliance with regulations
  • Land your spaceship successfully on a new territory – awards provided by our sponsors, in the form of services will help your ideas come to life

Who is it for?

From Zero To Fintech is open to everyone who want to skyrocket into the open space and explore the depths of Finance, IT, Marketing, Sales, Law, etc. We welcome aboard all Fintech-savvy disruptors who are not afraid to face the market reality and test their abilities and ideas.

Sounds like you?


Register now!

UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF

Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Bulgaria

SUPPORTED BY

PARTNERS

General Partner
Platinum Sponsor
Bronze Sponsor

CHALLENGES

  1. Build your own FinTech startup
    a. Make your own Future in Finance: Develop and test an idea from the ground up
    b. Get the best advice from our mentors to prepare for an independent entrepreneurial path and (maybe 😉) become the new Robinhood™
  2. Case studies
    a. Apply your advanced IT skills and develop open banking solutions for payments, credit risk management, asset management, insurance, green finance, smart regulation and smart cities, and more
    b. Provide solutions to cases suggested by Bulgarian and international companies and government institutions
    c. Get noticed by FinTech and BigTech companies that search for TOP talent

Jury

Academia

Boryana Bogdanova

Associate Professor
Vice Dean at FEBA
Sofia University ‘St. Kliment Ohridski”

Bozhidar Nedev

Associate Professor
Sofia University ‘St. Kliment Ohridski”

Bulgarian Fintech Sector Representatives

Ivelin Kamburov

Group CFO &
BoD Member
Credissimo

Boyan Stefanov Griffen

Regulatory Developments Senior Manager at Lloyds

Svetlin Sabev

COO & Member of
the BoD
StikCredit

Nikolay Stoykov

Independent FinTech Consultant

Emil
Koulov

Managing Director 
GoAnalytix

Martina Rousseau

Financial Strategist – Fintech

Pavel Kaminsky

Building cost-efficient PCI DSS on AWS & GCP Serverless | Fintech IT Mentor

WORKSHOP MENTORS – FINTECH WIZARDS

Veselina Markova

Corporate Innovation I Fintech
Eleven Ventures

Pavel Panayotov

Hackathon Winner
2021

Stoyan Pedev

CEO of Conquex
IBM Champion Blockchain

Marina Shideroff

Founder & CEO of
FRAM Creative Solutions

Georgi Stoyanov

Head, CRM & Digital Enablement, Limacon

Neda Muzho

Head of Department
Financial Superv. Commission

Nikolay
Gospodinov

Co-founder of 
Enbank

Hackathon MENTORS

Loic
Le Pichoux

CEO & Co-founder
Klear Lending

Yasena
Zasheva

Chief Strategy Officer
MyCFO Bulgaria

Nikolay
Gospodinov

Co-founder of 
Enbank

Zornitsa (Yankulova)
Nikolova

Founder at Digamont
Meaningful Digital Life

Deyan
RadeV
Phd

Associate Professor of Fintech
and Banking, Sofia University ‘St. Kliment Ohridski”

George Rimpeff

Chief Executive Officer at Prudentia S.A.R.L.

AGENDA

REGISTRATION PERIOD

Monday 20.02.2023 – Friday 17.03.2023

Registration with ideas/interests in Fintech via a Registration form
– All registrants will sign up with their credentials, short bio and what is their Fintech field of interest (by categories: Regtech, Insurtech, payments, etc.). Either propose an original Fintech idea or choose between the case studies provided by our partners

OPENING DAY

Saturday (18.03.2023)

11:30 – 11:45 – Hackathon Kick-off
11:45 – 12:30 – Keynote Speeches
12:30 – 13:30 – Overview of the Hackathon
13:30 – 18:00 – Workshops

WORKSHOPS

Saturday 18.03.2023
# Name of Workshop Organization involved Company name Speaker Time
1 Fintech ecosystem in Bulgaria &
Fintech Start-up Journey		 NGO BFA & 2021 Hackathon Winner Georgi Penev &
Pavel Panayotov		 13:30 – 14:00
2 Top 3 technologies in Fintech Private company IBM Champions Stoyan Pedev &
Ivan Vankov		 14:00 – 14:30
3 Learn how to fundraise. Insiders guide to get to term sheet Venture capital Eleven Ventures Veselina Markova 14:30 – 15:30
4 BREAK       15:30 – 16:00
5 Fintech UX  Design firm Fram Creative Solutions Marina Shiderof 16:00 – 17:00
6 Market and sell your solution Marketing firm Limacon Georgi Stoyanov 17:00-18:00
7 Top 5 applications of Open Banking in 2023 Fintech Enbank Nikolay Gospodinov 18:00 – 18:15
8 Speed up your go-to-market with Innovation Hub by FSC Bulgaria Regulator Financial Supervision Commission of Bulgaria Neda Muzho 18:15-18:45
           

 

CREATING FINTECH SOLUTIONS

Sunday – Friday (19– 24.03.2023)

  1. Getting to know each other and the tools we will use
    Guided communication by organisers. During the Hackathon we will use Slack, Sli do, Miro and many more, so in the beginning we will have a small talk about the tools we will use to communicate and execute.
  2. Forming the dream teams
    Creating teams around Fintech ideas
  3. Working with mentors
    Mentors jump in in every team and help with 30-minute advice per team (mentors agree with the teams suitable for the mentor time of the meetings).
  4. Testing Open banking solutions in real-life scenario
    If you are fast and passionate enough your ideas might be tested in live with Iris Solutions PSD2 Hub

CREATING PITCHING VIDEOS

Saturday, 25.03.2023

In the morning:
 Having another 10-minute mentor session with all teams, if needed

In the afternoon:
 Teams creating 3-minute pitching videos

THE BIG DAY

Sunday, 26 March

  • Live streaming
    Streaming a pitching session of the pre-recorded videos
  • Evaluation process
    The jury will have their last thoughts and opinion on what you propose
  • Fintech Conference
    While judging, we will jump into the following discussions:
    – Fintech Of The Future; Duration – 1:15 hrs.
    Stay tuned to be to find out the line-up!

Awarding Ceremony
Let’s the best teams win!

PRINCIPLES

Fulfill these principles and let your creativity rise and shine

ELIGIBILITY
The hackathon welcomes everyone interested in the field of finance. Whether you are a business, IT, Marketing, Sales or Law focused, or just a Fintech-savvy who wants to be the creator of the next generation Fintech, that’s the place for you!

TEAM SIZE
If you don’t have a team yet, during the event we will help you form teams of up to 6 people. The dream team would look like: 1.Finance 2. IT 3. Marketing 4. Sales 5. Legal. Teams with 50-50 women-men receive extra points.

CHECK-IN IS A MUST
All participants have to register by 23:59 on 17th March.

SUBMIT ON TIME
All teams should submit their work by 23:59 on 25th March. Any presentations submitted after will be invalid.

OWNERSHIP AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Teams have full ownership of everything they create during the event. Teams are free to do with it as they see wish.

BE NICE WITH EACH OTHER
We are all here to have fun and learn from the best. No need for hard feelings. Keep your cool :)

FAQs

You are welcome to ask anything but first, check these Q&As

The Hackathon is completely FREE of charge. Zero. Zip. Nada.

Don’t worry about that, you just fill in the form below and type in a short bio of yours, ideas, passion, interests and so on. The Hackathon is about meeting new, fresh people. We will get you in a team according to your interests and profile. But, still there will be plenty of time for everyone to meet other and pick teams before the start of the actual hacking.

In the COVID times we will use Slack, Microsoft Teams, Miro as a whiteboard and Google.

The business cases are provided by BFA member companies who are willing to challenge you in resolving a real-life problem. Get the puzzle sorted and you can expect a call from them.

Of course you can! You are more than welcome to work on your own idea. Make sure it matches Judge’s expectations and workshops’ training. If you don’t have a team yet, you better hurry and share your idea with the audience, so you get the best chances on building the team you dreamed of.

Mentors are there to help you. They will make the best out of their schedule to meet and discuss relevant topics to them. If you are having an idea on Regtech you will be provided with the list of mentors on Regtech. Give them a shout and schedule a suitable time for both your team and your mentor.

Iris PSD2 HUB is a platform that benefits all innovative financial companies and institutions which are interested in applying Open-banking in their products and services. Using a single-integration API to IRIS PSD2 HUB, anyone can access all banks and financial institutions on the platform: 13 banks in Bulgaria, Revolut, Paysera, banks in Greece and Romania.

The best ideas will receive awards, provided by our sponsors, in the form of services that will further support the development of the ideas and help them step up on the market.

From Zero To Fintech Hackathon is not about the winning, it’s about the learning. Through the hackathons and the process of working in teams you will get unique insights about the Fintech market and meet amazing people on the way. There is always a next year and you will more than welcomed to join once again :) 

Good wi-fi and a PC. Most importantly – passion to work in a team and a smile on your face. 

If we haven’t answer to all your questions, feel free to drop us a line at: [email protected]

JUDGING CRITERIA

To win this race you need to go the whole nine yards. So you better get an idea on how your idea will be evaluated.

  • Is your idea answering a need or/and solving an existing problem in the financial sphere?
  • How well do you understand your potential customers’ needs?
  • Who will be your users, and do they differ from your customers?

  • What information do you rely on when creating your Minimum Viable Product?
  • Did you manage to build a prototype?
  • How effective is your solution?
  • Did you collect customer feedback?
  • Did you incorporate customer feedback into your solution?

  • What is your key value proposition?
  • What is your competition?
  • Which is your specific target market and audience?
  • How will you acquire your first customers?
  • How feasible is your solution?
  • What is the regulatory framework you will operate in?
  • How scalable is your solution?
  • Is the solution unique to the Bulgarian market only or you can apply/expand the model abroad?
  • Can your solution be executed by the team (potentially with the help of outside experts, attracted later)?
  • What are the potential risks for the implementation of your business plan (e.g., economic, political, regulatory, etc.)? How would you address them?

  • Is your solution solving a convenience problem of existing services or provides a new service?
  • Does your service target or is it accessible to the “unbanked” population?
  • How does your service make our life as a society better?

PRIZES

BGN 3,000

BFA provides BGN 3,000 to the winner of From Zero To Fintech Hackathon

The BFA prize

The winner of the BFA prize receives BGN 3,000 which should be used for the realisation of the Fintech created during the event. The prize will be given to the team with the best overall performance throughout the hackathon.

ABOUT THE ORGANISERS

Bulgarian Fintech Association

BFA is a non-governmental, for-impact organization uniting all interest parties in the sector of digital finance innovation, working from the region of Southeastern Europe (SEE). Our mission is to further develop the digital finance sector in Bulgaria. In our initiatives, we bring together large Fintechs, SMEs, and supporting industries, as well as the respective authorities and academia to create favorable conditions for the development of digital finance solutions. Our ultimate goal is to establish Bulgaria as a leading Fintech Hub in the region of Southeastern Europe. We believe that fostering the Fintech businesses in Bulgaria will activate the country’s potential for innovation and new technologies.

Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (FEBA) at Sofia University

Sofia University is the first school of higher education in Bulgaria. Its history is an embodiment and a continuation of centuries of cultural and educational tradition in Bulgaria. FEBA is one of the leading institutions for teaching and research in the field of Economics and Business in the country and the Balkan region. FEBA’s mission is to produce highly-qualified graduates capable of working in all spheres of our public life.

Our graduate programmes reflect the changes in society and business by providing specialized knowledge. In October 2021, together with BFA we launched a Master’s degree in Finance, Investments and Fintech whose next step is the From Zero to Fintech Hackathon. We are committed to continue providing the highest quality of teaching and research implemented with real-life business cases and opportunities.

Learn more about the organisers-
Bulgarian Fintech Association and
Finance and Investments Master’s degree program at FEBA at Sofia University